Total system management is important in the server environment. Particularly, it is critically important to keep the CPU(s) in a server thermally stable. In recent years with the advancing state of processor capabilities coupled with the decreasing size of process technology, the standard CPU is pushing the upper bounds of thermal limitations. A variety of technologies have been introduced to help reduce heat dissipation of the processor die of a high performance CPU. Recently, Intel® Corporation has introduced Enhanced Intel Speedstep® technology which turns off circuitry and shifts through multiple clock speeds and core voltages according to processor load to save power and reduce the CPU's temperature. However, in many instances, the temperature of the processor die is high (i.e. just below, equal to, or beyond the upper bound thermal limit as indicated by the processor manual or specification) because heat sources external to the processor itself can heat up the internal ambient air temperature of the system case (i.e. the external housing of the computer system, which frequently contains the motherboard, the power supply, the CPU, the system memory, and multiple peripheral devices). High-performance peripheral devices, located on a bus coupled to the processor, are common heat sources that are external to the processor but in a close vicinity to affect the ambient temperature of the system case. Slowing down the CPU might not be enough in instances such as this because devices independent from the processor are causing the system to potentially overheat. Servers and workstations can have many high-performance peripheral devices connected to one or more high speed I/O buses, such as a PCI-X bus. These peripherals can potentially heat the ambient air temperature around the processor to significantly high levels all by themselves. This can cause the processor to overheat even if the processor itself is not strained with a computationally intensive workload. It is therefore important that an alternative method exists to reduce processor temperatures in a system with high performance peripherals connected to a high performance I/O bus.